Free Republic

The Biden administration is facing heavy criticism from Native Alaskans over its crackdown on oil and gas drilling in Alaska, activity which generates tax revenue vital for key state and local programs. Native Alaskan leaders have particularly taken issue with the Department of the Interior's (DOI) recent actions blocking future oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR), an area in North Slope Borough, Alaska, specifically set aside by Congress for resource development, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and in federal offshore waters off the state's coast. "My community unapologetically supports the leasing program," Charles Lampe,...

Republican U.S. House Natural Resources Committee leaders have escalated an ongoing investigation into Joe Biden’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland regarding her connections to the left-wing environmental activist group Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA). A letter sent to Secretary Haaland and the top Interior Department ethics official, Heather Gottry, and spearheaded by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., raises concerns about a potential “lack of impartiality and misuse of her position” in support of PAA and certain family members. Haaland’s daughter has been involved with PAA, while her husband has been engaged in consulting work related to Interior Department actions. The...

The Biden administration took action Wednesday for a historic agreement among Western states to conserve vital water supplies. The Department of the Interior (DOI), which has for months worked with state leaders on developing water conservation plans, issued a draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) laying out two potential options: a no-action alternative and the proposed action to substantially restrict supplies in coming years. The proposal is designed to protect the Colorado River System and two key dams in response to falling water levels. "Today, the Biden-Harris administration is taking another key action to bolster water resilience in the Basin...

Native American activists verbally clashed outside Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday, derailing a visit by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who was there to celebrate a 20-year buffer around a World Heritage Site in northwest New Mexico. Haaland’s trip to Chaco on Sunday was canceled when a group of Navajo land allotment owners blocked the road, upset with the Biden administration’s recent decision to enshrine for the next 20 years what previously had been an informal 10-mile buffer around the World Heritage site. The buffer protects the area from future federal mineral development, including oil and gas drilling....

On Friday, Joe Biden’s U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a former Democrat congresswoman from New Mexico, released her decision to ban permitting of any type of natural mineral extraction within ten miles of Chaco Canyon, resulting in fury from the Navajo Nation, which opposed the measure after unsuccessfully trying to work with the administration on a compromise. “Despite the Navajo Nation’s position, Secretary Haaland proceeded to issue this decision one day after the Navajo Nation commemorated our Treaty Day, which recognizes the Treaty of 1868 and the start of the government-to-government relationship between the Navajo Nation and...

The Biden administration is expected to soon finalize a rule banning oil and gas leasing near a Native American historical site despite heavy opposition from local Indigenous leaders, who say the administration's rule would prevent them from collecting royalties on their land. The rule, which the Department of Interior (DOI) announced in November 2021, would implement a 20-year moratorium on federal oil and gas leasing within a 10-mile radius of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park located in northwest New Mexico. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the rule, which would amount to a withdrawal of 336,000 acres of public lands...

WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior today announced a list of candidate replacement names for more than 660 geographic features with the name “squaw,” which was officially declared a derogatory term as a result of Secretary’s Order 3404. The Department has initiated Tribal consultations and an opportunity for public comment to recommend and review proposed replacement names. Secretary’s Order 3404 established the 13-member Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force, which includes representatives from the Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, National Park Service, Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights, Office...

We live in an era where the heroes of yesteryear are often vilified. It’s hard to believe that George Washington, “the father of our country,” fits in that category. Barbarians in the streets have even gone after statues of George Washington to topple them. I have recently made a film on George Washington’s life, legacy, and his faith. The film is simply called, “George Washington,” which I made for Providence Forum, founded by Dr. Peter Lillback. This film is one episode of a seven-part Foundation of American Liberty series. What is the foundation of our liberty? Our Judeo Christian heritage....

The Biden administration missed another deadline to hold quarterly onshore oil drilling lease sales after a federal court ruled it was legally required to do so. The Department of the Interior (DOI) defied the June 2021 court ruling which ordered the administration to halt its ban on new oil and gas leases, the Western Energy Alliance — a fossil fuel industry group that challenged the ban — said Wednesday. In August 2021, the DOI vowed to publish notices of competitive sales in December and hold a lease sale 45 days later, two promises it failed to keep, in court filings....

The Oath Keepers are the highest-profile and most extensively prosecuted militia group associated with the events of January 6. So far, the government has charged a total of 18 Oath Keepers with conspiring to obstruct Congress’s certification of the 2020 Presidential Election. This is a serious conspiracy charge that could potentially lead to decades of prison time. Oddly enough, Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes himself has not been charged with anything, despite the fact that the government cites Rhodes’ own statements and actions as largely constitutive of the conspiracy for which so many of his underlings face charges....

Stone-Manning was linked to a 1989 Earth First! tree-spiking plot in Idaho. The commonly used eco-terrorism tactic involves inserting metal rods into trees to prevent them from being cut down and cause chainsaws of loggers to explode. ------------ In a 50-45 party-line vote Thursday evening, the US Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s controversial eco-terrorist-linked nominee Tracy Stone-Manning, who had previously endorsed population control, to head the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees millions of acres of federal land.

Last week, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas arrived at the University of Notre Dame to speak about the Declaration of Independence. Speaking invitations like this that Thomas accepts are few and far between. Anyone who cares about our country and listens to this address will wish that he would agree to speak more. His presentation was a brilliant and profound articulation of what America is about at its core. It is what every American needs to hear in these troublesome and divisive times. Thomas tells his own story and how his life's journey led him to understand what America...

By rewriting America’s history and 'recontextualizing' her founding documents, Biden’s National Archives is seeking to undermine our country's founders.Words matter, and few words have mattered more in the history of the United States than those contained within the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and other founding-era documents stewarded by the National Archives.Protecting and celebrating the most important works in U.S. history isn’t only important because the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as other documents in the National Archives, are still legally binding, but also because they tell a story of who we are as a...

Judicial Watch Sues Pentagon and Park Police Over Jan. 6 Capitol Deployment Students Taught That ‘Make America Great Again’ is ‘Covert White Supremacy’ Florida County Gives Illegal Immigrants Special IDs to Get Vaccines, Public Services Rising Crime, Radical Agenda Test Left Judicial Watch Sues Pentagon and Park Police Over Jan. 6 Capitol Deployment Nancy Pelosi wants to set up a commission to continue the politicization of events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, saying that those who oppose her “are afraid of the truth.” That’s laughable. Getting to the truth is our specialty, and so we filed Freedom...

A friend recently asked me an interesting hypothetical question: if fraud and other means of chicanery were found to have been employed by insurrectionists to unlawfully upend the results of our nation’s 2020 election process, would that unlawful regime of insurrectionists have the moral authority to prosecute patriots for exactly that of which their regime is itself guilty—insurrection?Wouldn’t that confront America with a bit of a conundrum?That is, is it possible we could now have a government that—akin to the empire of King George—would prosecute those who—like our founding fathers—might find themselves impelled some day soon to sign a document...

....Significant changes are also in the works at the Interior Department, where Biden instructed the agency to review three national monuments that were altered during the Trump administration. The review of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments -- where former President Trump reduced the amount of protected land -- and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monuments, which Trump opened to commercial fishing, is supposed to determine whether it “would be appropriate” to restore the previous “boundaries and conditions.”... ....The Biden administration has also listed dozens of Trump-era environmental rules across several agencies that it plans to review,...

New Mexico Democrat Representative Deb Haaland was confirmed as the next secretary of the Department of the Interior on Monday, making her the first Native American Cabinet secretary in the country’s history. Senators voted 51-40 to confirm Haaland, who was strongly supported by advocates for conservation and Native American issues. She will soon lead an agency critical to the Biden administration’s efforts to confront climate change. Haaland said the confirmation was another crucial step in increasing Native American “visibility.” Haaland will soon be leading a federal agency with wide-ranging responsibilities on public lands throughout the country. The Interior Department approves...

On Tuesday, NM Democrat Rep. Deb Haaland spoke in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in her first confirmation hearing to be U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) secretary. However, during the committee, her extreme left-wing agenda was picked apart by even the most moderate senators in the committee, angered by the Biden administration’s assault on fossil fuels energy. Despite claiming in her opening statement that “fossil energy does and will continue to play a major role in America for years to come. I know how important oil and gas revenues are… critical services, but we must...

Over the weekend, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) announced that he was “deeply concerned” with Joe Biden’s cabinet nominee for the Department of the Interior, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM). He vowed to block Haaland’s nomination if his needs were not addressed. Daines’ statement following his conversation with Haaland reads as follows: “After our conversation, I’m deeply concerned with the Congresswoman’s support on several radical issues that will hurt Montana, our way of life, our jobs and rural America, including her support for the Green New Deal and President Biden’s oil and gas moratorium, as well as her opposition to the Keystone...

If future generations are to look upon Old Glory and see it as a symbol of hope, freedom, and justice, we must always protect and defend what we know to be true about it. These three words, which have also been painted on statues of people deemed problematic for their historical shortcomings, seem to carry the same weight the Stars and Stripes once did. Similarly, many professional athletes are now permitted to kneel or even remain in the locker room during the national anthem or to print social justice slogans on their jerseys. Traditional expressions of patriotism have become taboo...